The Ethical Dairy has been presented with a Higher Welfare Award (Dairy Cows and Calves) by Compassion in World Farming (CiWF), ten years after we moved our whole herd at Rainton Farm to a cow-with-calf system.
The award was presented at CiWF's 2026 Farm Animal Welfare Awards in Brussels on Wednesday 4 November. We were one of 44 winners worldwide and one of six from the UK.
At Rainton, our calves stay with their mothers rather than being separated shortly after birth, as is common practice across the dairy industry. For the first eight weeks they're together 24 hours a day, then separated overnight before a gradual weaning process at five to six months. Our cows are milked only once a day and share their milk with their calves. The farm is certified organic, 100% pasture-fed and operates a near-closed loop system, producing food from sunshine and rain with very few bought-in inputs.
We introduced a cow-with-calf management system across our whole herd in late 2016, following an initial pilot in 2012. We believe it was the first commercial scale cow-with-calf dairy system in Europe, and since it was introduced, productivity has improved year on year while input costs have steadily fallen.
David Finlay, who co-founded The Ethical Dairy with his late wife Wilma, is a fourth-generation dairy farmer who spent many years as an agricultural consultant advising farms to intensify. Together they took Rainton in a different direction, converting to organic nearly 30 years ago. The 2012 pilot was halted after five months, but it gave us the data and practical experience we needed to make our cow-with-calf dairy system work.
Cows in our milking herd, not counting first-time mums, now produce an average of 6,000 litres each, including the milk their calves drink. While each calf drinks roughly 2,000 litres (compared with the 420 litres each calf was given when we reared them on buckets), the suckling stimulates milk production. On average each calf's suckling is supporting an increase of around 1,500 litres in its mother's yield.
There's growing interest in cow-calf-contact dairy systems across Europe, although much of the recent growth on the continent is in fostering systems, where a few nurse cows suckle several calves while the rest of the herd is milked conventionally.
At Rainton, every cow raises her own calf, giving our cows the opportunity to express their maternal instincts, as well as enabling each calf to be mothered.
Milk from our herd is made into artisan cheese here on the farm. Most of our cheeses are made with unpasteurised milk in order to preserve the natural microflora of the farm's raw milk, which shapes the flavour and character of each cheese. Our cheese is sold through our online shop, with delivery across the UK, and in selected retailers such as Abel & Cole and Riverford. It's also been a successful year for awards. Fleet Valley Blue won Silver at the British & Irish Cheese Awards, and Carrick and Rainton Tomme both won Silver at the Great British Food Awards. Carrick also won Silver at the Scottish Dairy Championships at the Royal Highland Show, and at the Border Union Show Fleet Valley Blue took Gold and Best in Show, with Gold for Carrick.
Dr Tracey Jones, Compassion in World Farming's Global Director for Food Business, said:
"Compassion in World Farming is delighted to present The Ethical Dairy with a well-deserved Higher Welfare Award (Dairy Cows and Calves) award. Their pioneering cow-with-calf system shows the art of the possible, demonstrating how extensive, nature-friendly farming with animal welfare at its heart can help create a better food system.
"The Ethical Dairy is part of a growing global transition towards better animal welfare. As we grapple with the interconnected climate, nature and health crises, and the significant impact our food system has on all three, we must build on their leadership and turn what is possible into wider change, with urgency, ambition and optimism."
David said:
"We've been doing this for ten years now, in fact some of the cows due to calve in the next few weeks had their first calf here in autumn 2016, when we made the change. The early years were undoubtedly tough, but they taught us so much. We would now never go back to separating the dairy cows and calves. This system works. It works for the animals on the farm, it works for us, and it's getting more productive each year.
"We are very pleased to receive this award from Compassion. We think cow-with-calf dairy offers multiple benefits for family-sized farms, and we'd love to see more dairy farmers take a serious look at this approach. It goes without saying that I'd also like to see government and policy makers actively encourage dairy farmers to explore this resilient, high-welfare, profitable system."
David sits on the advisory board of TransformDairyNet, an EU-funded project coordinated by University College Dublin that supports knowledge sharing on cow-calf-contact dairying across Europe. He is a Fellow of Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), and in 2025 the International Dairy Federation invited him to speak about our model at the World Dairy Congress in Chile. He has called on the Scottish Government to match the EU's investment in cow-with-calf knowledge sharing, and our ambitions include an independent scientific study of the system and a centre of excellence for visiting farmers.
There are now more than 30 farms in the UK operating as cow-with-calf dairies or transitioning to the system, and farmers interested in making the change often visit us at Rainton to see how it works.
Rainton is the subject of A Dairy Story, a feature documentary about our transition to a cow-with-calf dairy management system. The film is currently touring cinemas, with community screenings due to begin later this month. A global online watch party of the film for potential community screening hosts will be held on Thursday 19 November 2026.